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Border children seek refuge in Ohio

Mark Curnutte
12:47 a.m. EDT August 18, 2014

Modesta Escalante with her three children, Yeser, 14, from left, Yuri, 7, and Marialinda, 12, in their Hamilton apartment. The children and Modesta’s niece recently made their way across the Mexican border into Arizona.(Photo: The Enquirer/Amanda Rossmann)

HAMILTON – The four young cousins landed in the Arizona desert, hungry, thirsty and exhausted after a three-day trek to cross the border. The youngest child, 6, couldn't take another step. The others kicked and screamed to fight off the attempted rape of the oldest girl, 17, by their Guatemalan guide.

When he finally fled, the children were left to fend for themselves for a day and a night in a new land they desperately longed to call home.

The ragtag group eventually arrived in Greater Cincinnati, four of the 62,000 unaccompanied children making up one of the largest immigration exoduses to reach U.S. borders in decades.

The widescale flight since October is unusual for its young demographic, driven partly by the false idea that immigrant children will be more welcome in the U.S. than adults. Because of its potential to change the makeup of the nation's schools, communities and cities, the flight also is igniting new debate over an old clash of values: The rights of a country to defend its borders versus an obligation to protect would-be newcomers from poverty or violence abroad.

The Enquirer found three of the children living today with their mother in a small Hamilton apartment; a family in Northern Kentucky is sheltering the fourth child, a niece.

They're typical of the flight of the border children from Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Mexico – about 30,000 of whom have been resettled with relatives across the country. Thousands more wait in border shelters and tent cities stretching from the southern tip of Texas to California.

While politicians from Washington to state capitals argue over policy, the tiny group that made its way here fights a more personal battle daily. Their mother works two jobs. The children prepare to return to school. None speaks English; an interpreter was required for this story.

And a bigger threat looms: Tuesday, the three siblings must appear in a courtroom in Cleveland, where an immigration judge could order them sent back to Guatemala in 30 days.

Family flees violence,Seeks means of support

The Escalante cousins left Cuilco, Guatemala, last December, fleeing a region in western Guatemala known for violence, drug smuggling and opium poppy farming.

Modesta Escalante, the 32-year-old mother of three of the children, told of a friend hit with a crude club by a machete-carrying member of a drug gang who then stole her purse. Modesta said robbers once knocked on her door and tried to force their way in. Her screams and those of her children brought neighbors to the rescue, who chased away the robbers.

When her husband left her in early 2012 to emigrate illegally to the U.S., Modesta had no money, food or a job. She soonasked her brother and his wife, parents of the 17-year-old who came North with her children, if they would care for her son and two daughters until she could reclaim them later. They agreed, and Modesta set out for the United States.

"When I went through the desert, I suffered very much," she said in Spanish on a recent day at her home. "I walked for four days and four nights. I would faint, but had to keep going."

Today, Modesta attends San Carlos Borromeo Church in the Cincinnati neighborhood of Carthage. She works full-time as a janitor in a restaurant and another 18 hours a week planting flowers in a nursery. Like all working, undocumented immigrants, she has an IRS identification number and pays local, state and federal taxes on her earnings.

That amounts to about $600 a week. When her children were still in Guatemala, she sent her brother $300 a month. The rest paid for food, shelter and transportation here.

Back home, Modesta's children survived in a land of maras, or marabuntas – gangs that originated in the U.S. but were sent back to Central America in a mass deportation of violent criminals. In the Guatemalan villages, they're feared by local government officials and act with impunity, going as far as to forcibly recruit boys.

Ohio cities offer To shelter children

Ohio's response to the border children issue reflects the nation's.

Ohio's Republican governor, John Kasich, like many Republican and Democrat governors, is frustrated by what his spokesman says is the lack of information coming from the Obama Administration.

"We are powerless to accept (border children). We are powerless to reject them. Right now we are not involved in the process," Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols told The Enquirer. "We don't know who is here or where they are or if they've been sent back."

Public debate has intensified as more border kids arrive.

Earlier this month, Cleveland Tea Party Patriots criticized Kasich in a press release for "supporting illegal aliens at the expense of Ohio citizens." The group said it was one of 40 "conservative and liberty groups" asking Kasich to "prevent any forced relocation of illegal immigrants in Ohio."

Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley said he supports the efforts of Catholic Charities of Southwestern Ohio to shelter border children. The mayors of Dayton and Columbus also have offered to provide temporary housing in their cities.

Ohio state Rep. John Adams, a Republican from Sidney, has countered with legislation to prevent Ohio social service agencies and municipalities from receiving state money if they house illegal immigrants.

To deal with the flood of illegal arrivals, the nation's 59 immigration courts set new priorities July 18 to speed the deportation of thousands of children. Unaccompanied border children are to receive a hearing within 21 days of their identification as illegal immigrants by the Department of Homeland Security.

Getting the children into court fast is the first priority of the Executive Office for Immigration, which oversees immigration courts. But the courts are swamped. The Cleveland court, for instance, has 584 pending juvenile cases.

When Modesta's three children go to court, their Cleveland lawyers will ask the judge to delay a ruling to keep the kids here as long as possible.

Modesta tries not to upset her children with worry about Tuesday's court date. The children are hoping to go back to school in and around Hamilton. Yeser wants to continue playing soccer.

At night, even after some work days that stretch to 14 hours, Modesta prays in bed that her family will be allowed to stay and become Americans.

"I trust God that things will work out well," Modesta said. "I do not want to go backwards. There is nothing for us in Guatemala except danger and poverty. I have lived through a lot of sadness and suffering in my life. So have my children. We want to stay here and be good people and help our new country." ■